Shares of technology companies edged lower as chips remained in focus.
U.S. chip equipment suppliers are pulling out staff based at China's leading memory chip maker and pausing business activities there, according to people familiar with the matter, as they rush to assess the impact of Commerce Department semiconductor export restrictions.
State-owned Yangtze Memory Technologies is facing a freeze in support from key suppliers including KLA and Lam Research, the people said.
South Korean memory-chip maker SK Hynix received a one-year exemption from new U.S. restrictions blocking exports of advanced chips and related equipment to China, a sign of Washington's willingness to offer reprieves that help minimize potential disruption to global semiconductor production.
Private-equity firm Vista Equity Partners struck a deal to purchase cybersecurity provider KnowBe4 for $4.6 billion in an increasingly rare leveraged buyout as financing for such deals has become harder to secure.
Meanwhile, a federal judge in Maryland on Tuesday declined to halt Booz Allen Hamilton's purchase of a competing cybersecurity company, turning back the Justice Department's effort to block the deal on antitrust grounds. Booz Allen in March moved to acquire EverWatch, a company it had been competing against to win a five-year contract to support the National Security Agency's mission of collecting foreign communications. The Justice Department sued in June, alleging that the acquisition would drive up prices for the U.S. government and create a monopoly supplier for a critical national-security service.
Write to Amy Pessetto at amy.pessetto@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
10-12-22 1721ET
